SDU it was the Seddon Atkinson 13 Tonne hub reduction rear axle, it was prone to oil seal leaks i think mostly, fitting better Stemco seals helped i think brake set up not the best. I have axle in my restoration and you have to take adjuster out to phase the brake shoes at beginning before putting adjuster back in then brakes in theory are adjusted as normal. Operators just preferred the well known Kirkstall or Eaton axles really for the reliability.
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Itâs common knowledge that Bewick begged Leyland for a cheap 240 Big J.
Gardner allowed just one so long as he bought 10 240 Atkis.
Why didnât you just send that reply direct to Dennis, instead of to me?
I canât have our antipodean member becoming confused and spoiling his weekend never knowing what a Seddon Group axle was !
I can explain from experience of running the bloody things on both 220cu Borderers and 8LXB Sed Atks ! The axle was the in house axle built by Seddon Diesel at their Oldham factory and why it was rated at 13 ton I could never understand.
However when Seddons bought out Atkinson Lorries in 1970 they started foisting their axle onto Atkinsons particularly on stock chassis and if purchasers were price concience .Prior to this time the two wxles used by Atkyâs were Kirkstall and Eaton. The Seddon axle was fine in the 32/4 180LXB chassis but a f---- nightmare in the 220/250Cummins and 8LXB chassis both Borderer and Sed Atk and once the new Sed Atk appeared on the market well the Group axle became the standard .On our high mileage double shifter units we were lucky to get to 70,000 miles or about six months !
We had one exception which was a Seddon 32/4 220 Cummins which we double shifted for two years from new and the axle never let us down which was unbelievable !
I agree about using the Stemco seals but it was the hub reduction gears that absolutely
wore out. I kicked Sed Atks into touch after 1977 and started buying ERF B & C Series speccâd with the Eaton axle as I never saw the benefit of running HR axles although the Kirkstall D85 axles we ran in the A Series and a couple of Borderers never gave any trouble ! Cheers SDU hope you have a good weekend mate cheers Dennis.
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Thanks Dennis, I hope your weekend is enjoyable also, you have more of it left than me. 
It looks like Bewick had a severe case of amnesia.
Or he was just avin a larf in his reply to you as I was.
Although some say there was/is a shed somewhere in Cumbria where Bewick hid the evidence of the only 240 BigJ.
No point in saving all that cash in Gardner running costs and then wasting it on Atki prices.
Now then CF me old china has Matron been a bit slow dispensing Meds this evening ?
Atkis and Gardners were always far superior to the US rubbish motors and engines you have doggedly insisted on promoting for more years that I can recall ! So itâs ten out of ten for trying but one out of ten for content ! Bewick.
What no grille badge ! 
Which ones Dennis, two stroke or the small Cummins VTs?
But the truth is the Gardner went the same way as the Dodo, at around similar time as the TL12, when it had to haul more than 32t.
Unlike Rolls and Cummins.Or even the Detroit in most of the English speaking world.
But agree donât understand why anyone would have chosen a naturally aspirated Cummins, or 6/8 v71 Detroit, over the 240 Gardner.( Or paid Atki prices instead of putting the 240 Gardner in a BigJ ).
God loves a trier
Just like a terrier dog CF always has to have the last yap ! 
Must have been a generic promo unit 
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Wasnât the demise of Gardner much more to do with their too-little-too-late entry onto the turbo scene? Perhaps combined with supply not up to demand in the period leading up to that.
Yeah thereâs a word for that
Nothing wrong with TL12 I had a Leyland Marathon mid 70âs doing fresh cut oak out of the forest up to a furniture manufacturer near Harrogate from Hampshire went over the weight bridge many times at 50 ton pulled like train. Gerbil
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Unlike Cummins and RR probably that was because basic Gardner design just didnât have the required redundancy in its strength to accept turbocharging ?.
But so long as the comparison was NA Cummins v NA 8LXB I can thank Bewick for having learnât something in that regard.
Yes, I donât thing that Cummins had anything like the robustness of the NTC when it arrived. I have to say, even the non-turbo NTC 250 did the job well.
As for Gardner: I donât think it was anything to do with the strength of the engine, which was working well within its margins. It was, as I understand it, a stubbon-ness not to move with the technology of the day. I can stand to be corrected on this.
I had a 320 Gardner in an old Foden and that was a great motor